Page 22 of There's an Elf in My Cockpit

I think my heart just about exploded when Oliver charged Elpherian. There were guns everywhere, we were outnumbered, this was only going to end one way, and it wasn’t good. Two of Oliver’s big friends charged from one side, bowling themselves into the host of guards. I heard the sounds of more fighting going on behind me, but I also heard the unmistakable whine of a laser as it cut through the frozen air.

Wreck was gone from my left, his big, gray-skinned body racing for the nearest target. Belal seemed twice as big with all his blue fur standing on end, a horrendous growl coming from deep in his chest. Anyone who got near me was swept beneath his claws as he fought on all fours. It was as if I had my own personal guard; he never left my side.

I wanted to scream that this wasn’t what I wanted. I didn’t want little Belal to fight, I didn’t want Oliver to risk himself. But everything was a moving, writhing mass of bodies, of screams and grunts, the slap of flesh and snap of bone. Oliver’s gladiator friends looked like they were actually having fun, and it didn’t appear like the teens were any better. I was pretty sure I saw Darth laughing as he swooped down over a set of Elpherian’s men on his big leathery wings.

Searching for a weapon, I came up empty, my ice axes were with my backpack in the working shuttle, and the laser pistol was with Oliver. Then I saw the glint of it not too far from where Oliver and Elpherian were wrestling on the ground. I checked once on Belal, who was by my side again, quivering from tension in his four-legged posture like he was a coiled spring.

Diving forward, I landed on the pistol with my hands outstretched, only a mere few feet away from where my ex and my current lover were fighting. I got to my knees, the pistol aimed between my shaking hands and I had to check myself to make sure I wasn’t accidentally going to shoot the wrong person. They were moving too fast, tossing this way and that, I was terrified I’d end up shooting Oliver, damn it!

Casting my eyes about, I searched for other targets, narrowing my gaze on that two-faced lying piece of shit that was trying to scramble out of the path of the fighting and back into the ship. Merila had been my rock in this whole mess, telling me I was doing the right thing while she assured me she’d keep me absolutely safe. All the while she’d been selling me out to my ex, no wonder he’d found me on that resort.

I had taken shooting lessons once before on a wilderness hike in the dangerous Merakal jungles on one of Elrohir’s moons, but all that flew right out of my mind. I just wanted to hurt her like she hurt me, and I squeezed the trigger with no finesse, the laser fire wildly hitting her near her feet on the ramp. I growled, angry that I was failing at this, and forced myself to take a few calming breaths.

Focusing on where I wanted to hit, right in her lying face, it felt like everything narrowed down to this single moment. As if I had tunnel vision, all I saw was her panicked face while she tried to avoid the fighting mob of guards and gladiators. My finger on the trigger, I was about to squeeze when a howl rent through the night, followed by another, and then another.

I was instantly back on the ice with Oliver, my mind flashing to that moment when the ice beast had leaped for my male, maw opened wide to devour him whole. That creature had howled just like this and I knew without a shadow of a doubt that more beasts exactly like it were about to descend on this ice crater.

Forgetting all about shooting Merila, or any of Elpherian’s men, I spun and looked up at the cliffs rising sharply on all sides. I knew from experience that these beasts, big as they were, had no problem climbing down a sharp cliff, we weren’t safe in here. When I saw the first shape crest the wall, leaping down the two-hundred-foot cliff in just a few leaps my finger tensed around the trigger instinctively.

The pistol in my hands hissed and then it got hot. With a scream, I hurled it away from me. I slammed into the snow when Belal landed on top of me only a second later. “What happened? Why didn’t the pistol work?” I demanded, not of the kid so much as just to give voice to my confusion. Then a small boom rocked us, and another, and another. From under the blue-furred arm, I could only just make out the sight of several laser riffles exploding in the hands of their owners and I was extremely grateful I’d hurled my pistol or I would have followed the same fate.

Belal’s response above me was just that of a snarling, angry growl and then he was moving away. Spinning back to face the rock wall and the horde of descending ice beasts. No, this time it was me who grabbed hold of one of his arms to hold him back. “No, you are not fighting those. One nearly killed Oliver last time.”

As if speaking his name had conjured him, Oliver was suddenly next to me, his arm sliding around my shoulders to press my side into his chest. “Are you hurt anywhere, sweetheart?” he demanded, his eyes roving over my body in a quick appraisal before he focused them on the approaching beasts as well.

“No, I’m alright. You?” I took much longer to assure myself that he wasn’t hurt. Noting the slight swelling underneath one of his gray eyes, the bloody welt along the side of his scalp, and the row of deep tears along the front of his parka. Definitely hurt, but he was moving and the white coat would have told me if he was bleeding badly, it wasn’t soaked in red, so he was alright.

“Fine, Belal, buddy. Take Vi to safety, I’m counting on you,” he said and with one big hand, he tugged once on the thickly furred shoulder of the teenager. It was all that was needed to snap him out of his focus on the beasts, and he turned his head to gaze at Oliver with a serious expression as he nodded.

Damn it, was I seriously going to get saddled with a thirteen-year-old bodyguard? That was all kinds of wrong! Was Oliver going to send me away to cower in a shuttle somewhere while he fought these beasts and Elpherian’s forces? I wanted to be mad about it, but he was right, and that just pissed me off more. Without a gun, I was absolutely useless in a fight. Making Belal my guard also meant taking him out of the fight, I couldn’t be upset about that.

Oliver’s gloved fingers closed around my chin, yanking my face roughly to his for a kiss. I forgot all about anger when he did that, allowing the heat of him, and his passion to sweep through me. This might be the last time we could kiss. Those beasts were far worse than anything Elpherian had to offer. None of us might make it, there had to be at least a dozen of them.

When he pulled away I hung on with both hands by the front of his coat. I was grabbing this chance while I had it, I wasn’t going to let him go without knowing what he meant to me. Without knowing that I knew he had my back in every way that mattered. “I love you, Oliver.”

His gray eyes grew wide and then they heated. “We’ll talk about that later, mate,” he growled at me and he kissed me again. “And I love you too. Now go! Stay safe!” With a push I found myself stumbling after Belal who had one clawed hand firmly around my wrist as he dragged me after him to the safety of the working shuttle. It was parked furthest away from all the mayhem, it was a good choice.

We could barricade ourselves inside it, maybe even fly away with it. The thought struck me that if everyone could manage to retreat here, we could use it to escape this utter disaster. I wanted that moment just now with Oliver to be more than just a farewell, I wanted it to be the beginning of the rest of our lives.

Belal and I thudded into the shuttle through the half-opened hatch. While I struggled to get my eyes to adjust to the darkened interior, the young Hoxiam perched on the edge of the opening, his fur on end as he bristled and growled, his legs shaking with tension while he watched the battle raging outside of the vessel.

“Hi,” a female voice said, and I nearly jumped out of my skin before I realized that it was the human female that had come down with the rescue shuttle. She had been introduced to me as Chloe, and I liked how her blue eyes were kind and a little shy when we shook hands. Right now, she didn’t look shy, she looked confident from where she sat in the navigator’s seat in the cockpit area. “You don’t happen to know how to fly a shuttle do you?” No, I definitely did not.

Chapter 16

Oliver

My friends and I gathered together in front of Kitan’s shuttle, back to back as we appraised the arrival of this beastly force. I’d left Elpherian unconscious in the snow somewhere and I didn’t care one bit if that meant he was about to get eaten by one of these big ice beasts. Near the ramp to Elpherian’s ship, his remaining forces had gathered, trying to back up into the ship, only that Merila woman had locked them all out to protect herself.

We weren’t fighting each other now, everyone was poised, waiting for the beasts to strike. Without the use of any of our long-range weapons, there was no way to start picking them off as they stalked down the cliff face.

My breathing was gusting out of me in a big cloud of white in the icy temperatures. In the fighting earlier, at least half of our lamps had been shot out so my all too human eyes struggled to make out some of the finer details, especially in the distance where what little light that remained couldn’t reach. I was certain that all the beasts had reached the bottom of the crater when I felt Kitan’s hybrid-form next to me shudder with excitement.

“They are huge,” hissed Jakar somewhere to my left. “And your mate says you fought one by your freaking self? Way to impress her, brother.” Surviving my last encounter with one of these ice beasts was more luck than anything else, and it had been my little elf that had struck the final blow. I didn’t really feel like fighting fifteen more of them, even if I had my gladiator friends to back me up.

Darth was circling overhead on his big wings, unafraid of getting shot now that all laser weapons had somehow been disabled. There was a niggle of thought at the back of my mind about that but it didn’t become a full-blown theory until Darth suddenly shouted and pointed. I saw it right as the beasts charged into the trampled area between the three ships.

A shadow between them, running on all fours, as big as they were, as inhuman looking as the rest of the giant beasts but completely different too. It defied taking any real shape as if my brain just couldn’t quite comprehend what it was seeing.

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